Get Your Butt Away from My Butts

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing long-awaited regulations governing the fast-growing electronic cigarette industry.

The new rules, to be made public Thursday, are expected to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, placing them under the same requirements as cigarettes. That would likely include a ban on the sale to minors.

"That would be a little less stringent than if they were regulated as medicinal products used in smoking cessation," said Dr. Hilary Tindle, assistant professor of medicine and director of the tobacco treatment service at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The FDA said the public, the electronic cigarette industry and others will have 75 days to comment on the proposed regulations.

I'll go ahead and add my comment before the 75-day period even begins.

Back off, bub.

I don't smoke e-cigarettes, but a close friend of mine used them to quit smoking the real thing after years and years of failed attempts. He'd tried patches, gum, cold turkey, only smoking when his wife was at work -- everything.

I've thought about buying one, just because I still sometimes miss that feeling of well-being you get from a rush of nicotine with that first cup of coffee in the morning, or right after a big meal. And why not? Nicotine inhaled via vapor isn't going to give anybody any cancer. The only reason I don't do it is I'm afraid the busybodies will take them away, leaving me craving a real smoke for the first time in a long time.

That's not a risk I'm willing to take, not after it took me years of failed attempts to quit, just like my close friend.

But that's what busybodies do: Restrict pleasure for the sake of restricting pleasure.